


Nine Lives

by rpshoodini



Category: Joker Game (Anime)
Genre: Present Tense, yoru has his (its?) own tag!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24789307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rpshoodini/pseuds/rpshoodini
Summary: A gust of wind and a plethora of scattered documents greet Yuuki when he enters his office this morning. Yuuki frowns. Metal of the doorknob feels cold under his grip. “It’s you again,” he mutters.
Kudos: 5





	Nine Lives

A gust of wind and a plethora of scattered documents greet Yuuki when he enters his office this morning.

Yuuki frowns. Metal of the doorknob feels cold under his grip. “It’s you again,” he mutters.

The cat, whose fur is black like the midnight sky, nonchalantly licks its front paw from where it is sitting on the disarranged desk.

* * *

(Six.)

(Seven.)

(Eight.)

* * *

Summer, 1938. A stray cat which had been living around the area found its way into the building’s perimeters, gaining the attention (and annoyance, in the case of a certain trainee) from the agency’s trainees and, consequently, Yuuki himself.

What Yuuki is seeing right now is unmistakably the exact same cat.

Its whiskers have grown long, gray strands stick out from here and there, strikingly obvious in their surroundings. Its ears have somehow become wrinkled and droopy, further enhancing its gaunt appearance. Yet Yuuki never doubts his memory. Both humans and animals undergo several changes as they grow older, but some things simply don’t change—for instance, the glint in the cat’s green eyes and how they look into Yuuki’s with a mix of curiosity and hostility.

The cat stares at Yuuki, who glares in return. 

“You can’t find food around here anymore. Go somewhere else.”

Foolish cat, Yuuki sneers. The halls of Greater Asia Cultural Society building have been empty for a while now. No cigars are lit, no heated arguments on philosophy are initiated. The building now contains nothing, except perhaps nostalgia, but nostalgia alone satisfies no rumbling stomach, nor does it help a country to triumph in a blazing war.

Yuuki is never a sentimental man to begin with.

They say cats that make it into the old age are either the strongest or the ones cowardly enough to avoid clashing with other cats thus living a life free of hurt. Yuuki however isn’t entirely of the same mind. He knows from experience that those who managed to stand until the end aren’t the one who declines or jumps at every challenge he is faced with, but instead, the one who chooses his battles carefully. In other words, the survivor survives because and only because he picks exclusively the fights he expected to win.

Yuuki is a survivor. He doesn’t side with the losing party, loyalty be damned—and will change sides in a blink of an eye if it means staying alive.

Slowly, Yuuki approaches his desk to assess the mess that the cat has created.

He skims through the scattered papers; turns out they are classified, yet ancient files. Real names, fake names—but nobody could guess which is which, could anyone, except the spymaster himself?—alongside names of prestigious universities and institutes. Photos of young men. One photo shows a man with maroon hair and red lips. Another has a dark haired man who sports a serious expression printed on it. A brunet with heavily-lidded eyes whose body language gives off a relaxed vibe appears on the other.

Gone. Missing. Dead.

No matter the cause, keeping identities of deserted spies a secret is irrelevant. It’s a waste of space. Yuuki has thought of disposing their files long ago.

“Don’t give me that look,” Yuuki warns.

The cat meows, averts its judging eyes. The guilt that lingers is akin to cigarette smoke.

He’ll request for these papers to be shredded later. Or burned. Whichever is more convenient and less attractive.

Yuuki can’t help but feel a little pissed at the cat. If only it hadn’t decided to wreck his office out of the blue, the documents would still be piled neatly thus he wouldn’t need to go through the pain of speaking with his idiotic military subordinates.

He recalls that folk tale about black cats and bad omens. Suddenly Yuuki kind of understands why Okita had a burning desire to murder the cat even at the brink of his death.

Nevertheless, cats aren’t always related to misfortunes, are they? The Egyptians practically worship cats. An English proverb claims that cats possess nine lives.

Certain cultures believe that cats are tied to resurrection. Extra lives, nine chances.

Nine souls, with which he could spread his influence all around the world, securing his control over international information. He thought it would be useful. Afterall, eight is quite a number. It really was, temporarily, but just as ordinary souls they are not immune to mortality. None of them is. Nine lives seems invicible only when they’re put together. Individually, each of them is vulnerable. They don’t last, and before he knew it, Yuuki has nearly exhausted all of his.

Well, the black cat also looks like it has used up eight of his lives. This, Yuuki believes he can sympathize with. He wonders what the cat is planning to do with his remaining seconds.

Come to think of it, there aren’t many corpses of cats laying around, despite the great number of street felines roaming in town.

You can hardly find corpses of dead cats, because it is a part of their intuition to find shelter in hidden places as their body deteroriate. Weaker body means easy prey. Cats would rather spend their final moments in peace than under the menacing claws of an enemy. In that sense, cats are similar to humans.

Or is it humans that are similar to cats?

Huh.

Yuuki can already imagine the silky voice of a certain cheeky young man snickering from his casket.

Once, that man confessed that he hated cats. Aha, Yuuki has thought, it’s ironic because that man, in fact, bore the most semblance to felines compared with his colleagues.

But then again, cats are supposed to have nine lives. That man doesn’t. Didn’t.

It’s such a shame.

“Be a good cat and stop messing with my office. If you visit next time, I’ll feed you something,” says Yuuki to the cat, raising a hand to caress its ear.

The cat dodges his incoming palm with ease, for which Yuuki’s eyebrow twitches in annoyance, but then the cat minutely rubs its head on his ankles with a quiet purr before turning away. It leaps to the windowsill and makes its way outside in dainty steps, its tail finally disappearing from sight.

Yuuki limps to the opposite side of his office in an attempt to shut the window. When he looks down from where his office is located on the second floor, bustling streets crowded with civilians and soldiers alike fills his view. But not a glimpse of the black cat. Somehow, Yuuki gets the feeling that they will never meet again.

He draws the window closed and latches it down anyway.

The temperature within the office soon rises as the freezing wind is reduced into insignificant chills seeping through the small fissures on decaying wood. As if on cue, a knock is heard from the door, followed by a deep, muffled voice.

“Lieutenant Colonel?”

Yuuki lets out a sigh. He makes sure to sit comfortably before giving a curt reply.

“Enter, Sakuma.”

(One left.)

**Author's Note:**

> Context: a few years ago (I think) I saw a post on tumblr saying that it is implied at the end of the novel series that all spies ended up msa/dead, thus Yuuki himself, predicting that Japan would eventually lose the ww2, decided to betray his own country and escaped to America. I'm not sure if I remember this right or if my memory is failing me, but I feel like it is a very fitting ending for jokage. So as you can see this fic is somewhat based on that idea. Like Yoru, Yuuki "made his escape out of the window" and hid himself in the crowd, never to be seen again.
> 
> (I also included a little trivia about Okita Souji up there.)


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